


Before I Fall

by SparrowWritesFanfiction



Category: V for Vendetta (2005)
Genre: (Because i'm a sappy piece of shit and don't want him dead), F/M, POV Female Character, Platonic Female/Male Relationships, Reader starts in a really shitty situation but it gets better, Storyline runs parallel to movie universe, V LIVES
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-04-21
Updated: 2018-06-08
Packaged: 2019-04-25 17:24:22
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 6
Words: 19,855
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14383437
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SparrowWritesFanfiction/pseuds/SparrowWritesFanfiction
Summary: This is a story about the worst and best year of my life. It was the year where I lost my house, my job, and everything I ever held dear.It was also the year that I met him, and everything around me changed.(A female reader insert story set parallel in time with the V for Vendetta movie, because this fandom is tragically lacking in reader-inserts and I'm a selfish author. V doesn't die, and is aided by Reader).





	1. A Stranger's Cloak

**Author's Note:**

> Note 1: In the start of this story, Reader is essentially homeless. I drew inspiration from the stories I was told by friends I made during a long period of hospitalization, who have experienced actually being homeless and the specifically different ways people treat you. Not having a place to go might be one of the scariest and unfunniest things I've heard about. 
> 
> Note 2: This story runs exactly parallel with the movie up until chapter four where it deviates. Chapters 1-4 are set pre-parliament, chapter 5 is set on Nov.5th, and chapters 6 and on are set post-parliament.

  
There were a lot of factors involved in me becoming homeless. At first it was the poor grades, then the hate-tinged divide between my living family and I, then the shitty jobs with shitty hours and while desperately trying to attend medical school. Honestly, I think the real punch in the gut was that rain-slick night running to my night shift, and the subsequent street cross and resulting car crash that left me without a left leg and in 20,000 dollars of debt to the local hospital. Everything might have turned out ok If my parents were still around. But dad was dead, mom had been gone since I was eight, and all other subsequent family members and friends had hauled ass as far away from this place as they could. I could have just returned to my job, if they're let me. But I suppose being a table server might be better for someone with two legs. And without an expensive addiction to painkillers they developed in the hospital. I tried everything, really, I did. There aren't really any sparkling job positions for boney and sallow girl with stringy hair and bruise-blue eye sockets, save for hauling the occasional trash bag and a few pity-quarters from pudgy old ladies with smiles lines on their faces.

  
There was a homeless shelter 3 blocks away from me. I never went. Anybody with even a second of life experience knew to never step a foot in there. They'd wash your clothes, sit you down for a big hot meal, let you shower, and give you a warm blanketed cot to sleep in. Then in the morning you'd have vanished, cot sheets gently refolded and all your possessions in the 'free to take' box by the door. The shelter is a death sentence and everybody knows it, but we don't talk about it. We're not supposed to.

  
Technically we're not supposed to be out after curfew either. Easier said then done when you don't have a single place to go. You really can't be caught out after dark, especially us; again, we'd disappear, vanish like mist from the town we lived in just minutes before. By week two I had pretty much solved that problem by spending most of my nights in the least monitored alley I could find, behind overflowing bins and stacks of wet and unattended cardboard. But still, sleep is always fitful. I always wake up to listen to any passing footsteps from the nearest street.

  
But lately life had gotten harder. Temperature started to drop, and my two sweatshirts and shitty sleeping bag weren't cutting it anymore. From what I heard on passing radios, there had been a recently implemented 'initiative to restore the cities of England'. By restore, they meant make the curfew tighter, watch us all more closely. It set my teeth on edge. Acquaintances I made in my time on the streets started to disappear. Corners of the city that were once safe were being watched, converted into metaphorical mouse traps. It wasn't a restoration initiative. It was a move to purge the blemishes. 

 

* * *

 

  
It's Friday, some time around midnight. I quietly quake under the nylon fabric of my sleeping bag on the icy concrete, running my cold knuckles over my chapped lips in the semi-darkness of the alley. A set of watchmen footsteps in the distance had jolted me awake five minutes ago, which means in five more minutes another set would walk by. I Idly breathed warm air over my hand, eyes unfocused and staring at the wall across from me. Maybe tomorrow would be the day. Maybe I'd walk into that shelter, take their damn food, drink their damn tea, get into one of their damn beds, and wait to disappear. Another numerical mark in somebody's task ledger. Fading away had to be better than this; hell, anything to be better than this. I was sick of the cold so freezing that my skin went numb and hot. I was sick of my heart racing with the sound of footsteps on pavement. I was sick of the sharp ache that sat behind my eyes, sick of the stares, sick of being lesser than human to the other humans that walked by and pretended I wasn't staring at them with my livid gaze.

I do not fear death for one and one reason only. I don't want to become like the others i'd seen, cowering in the dark with their hollow eyes squinting out from behind cardboard, fearful and afraid until their heart stops from stress or age or both. I will take any measure to avoid this.

  
In my shivering daze I pick up the sound of another pair of shoes on the street. But these are faster, lighter than the watchmen. Not to mention two minutes early. And headed down the alley. I sit up straighter against the bin as the footsteps get closer and closer, tired and cold and much angrier than I imagined I'd be when ultimately got arrested. A few months ago I would have imagined myself scared shitless. Now i'm just disappointed in how warped terrible every single thing on this goddamn planet is.

  
The fast footsteps are just a couple strides away now.

  
"Finally. Come put me in the back of a van and pretend I never existed? Took you long enough." My loud and pointed silence-breaker surprised even me with its venom and heat. The footsteps stopped just a few feet away, enough so that I could make out a general blob of height and shadow that denoted a man in the semidarkness of the alley. The stranger was completely still, and there was complete silence save for the frigid wind and the occasional truck rolling past. I rolled my eyes, continuing to stun myself with my fearlessness (or complete lack of regard for self-preservation) "You know, people like you make situations like this even more unpleasant. I mean, you're already running around bagging random people and feeling like shit about it, probably so much that you won't even admit it to yourself. Because hey, as long as you're the one doing the hurting and not getting hurt, it should all turn out fine, right?" I exhale hard into the cold night air and watch the pull of steam that follows. "But come on, not even talking to me? That's just a dick move."

The silence in response to my one-sided and poisonous banter is deafening, but instead of it striking me cold with fear, it makes me even more frustrated. I want a rise out of this excuse for a human. I WANT to make him feel how I feel; angry and tired and like there were bugs under my skin that never went away. I pull both shaking hands away from the warm air by my mouth and hold them out in front of me to the darkness. "See? Lookie, I may not have both legs but at least I have two wrists to cuff. Doesn't that just make you feel all warm and fuzzy inside?" I let my arms drop into my lap. "What do you want? Wanna say a few words, rough me up, go on a little power trip, be the big security guy protecting his city? Go ahead, I'm all ears, but that won't stop me from reminding you that it's bullshit." I'm minutes away from what in all likelyhood is death, and I'm realizing with a dawning chill that i'm too hungry or tired or exhausted to care.

  
"Most people would think it a very stupid choice to risk their lives for a few angry words." the low and clipped voice makes me startle in my sleeping bag after so much silence, but my response is immediate.

  
"Well, most people won't even discuss the fact that it's completely fucked that citizens of this country just go missing for no reason, so I think that may invalidate your argument." I retort, pulling my loose knitted beanie down harder over my frozen ears. "And anger is always better than fear."

  
A truck passes in the distance.

  
I blink in bewilderment at the sudden white oval that's hovering in the darkness before I do a double take and realize it's a face. A grinning porcelain mask, to be exact. The man wearing it steps forward into the watery yellow lights that weakly shine into the alleyway, and my first reaction is to let out a snort. He looks like some sort of harlequin pilgrim, with a wide brimmed hat, a straight-cut wig, a long black cloak, and shining leather boots. He almost undetectably cocks his head at my poorly concealed outburst.

  
"Maybe combining stealth combat with new world settler chic was a revolutionary move in the Fingermen dressing department, but it certainly was an idiotic one." I quip as the man moves his gloved hands to his neck, unbuttoning the fasteners on his cloak. He pulls it away from his shoulders, and twin sets of sparring knives glimmer on his belt. Ok, that's admittedly pretty terrifying. But hey, if he brought them here, at least I won't have to suffer through some cramped van ride to what would probably be some horribly dystopian warehouse.

  
Before I can really process what's going on, the man has grabbed my wrist and pulled me into a standing position on my sleeping bag, and slung the heavy cloak around my shoulders. The fabric is so thick and so warm that my frozen skin practically burns, and I instinctive nuzzle my nose down into the high neckline as two gloved hands quickly button it back up. Only after I've inhaled the scent of some strange perfume (cloves, maybe? The smell of wood smoke? Wet stone?) am I shocked enough to wonder why a law enforcer just kept me from freezing. I apprehensively look up at the man in the half-light, strings of oily hair falling over my eyes. His form-fitting black doublet cuts an intimidating silhouette, his masked face unreadable and impassive. Abruptly, he bows, taking his hat off with a flourish. For the second time that night I'm overwhelmed with the urge to laugh at this ridiculous and odd circumstance.

  
"I'm terribly sorry that I haven't so much as introduced myself. You may call me V: stoker of fires, man of madness, bringer of change that is long overdue." He sets his hat back on top of his wig. "And to whom do I owe the pleasure of this meeting?"

  
"Impressive titles for a man standing in a trashy alley at ungodly hours of the morning." I deadpan, sidestepping his question, "If you're not a civilian, and you're not working for the establishment, who are you? Should I be running away from you?"

  
"I should think not," He replies, and smooths the lapels of his doublet, "Not yet anyways. You may have to wait a few months. For now you'll have to settle for running in general."

  
My eyebrows furrow. V remains still, save for bringing both gloved hands together. I can't shake the feeling that underneath that mask he's weighing me, weighing my words and my actions and observing me down to the very last minute detail.

  
"The patrol is out in triple force for the night. I suggest finding somewhere much less apparent and open than here to stay until the sun rises."

"Why are they out in triple force tonight?" I press.

  
"They were alerted to some preparations I was making."

  
I waited for an elaboration, but nothing came. The strange man gave me nothing else but a clipped 'good evening' and turned heel to walk away.

  
"Wait." I said harshly, shaking fingers clutching tight to the inside of his cloak. He stilled in the yellow light, but did not turn around. "Why did you stop? Why you talk to me even after all the crazy things I said?"

  
He was silent for a moment before speaking. "There are wolves in the sheep pen, madame. It's my profound duty to get the sheep out. When I looked over," He turned his head just enough so I could see the mask's dark eye-hole over his shoulder, "You were staring at me from the other side of the pen fence. Quiet interesting indeed."

  
And then I was alone again, standing by myself next to a garbage can in the middle of an alley in the freezing midwinter air, surrounded by the smell of cloves and wood-smoke and stone. Somehow despite how ridiculous and stupid and straight up drug-trippy my most recent conversation was, something deep inside me told me it was best to listen to that man's advice and find somewhere to lay low for the rest of the night. I stooped to grab my medical crutch-turned-walking stick and my over-the-shoulder messenger bag with my essentials, taking a half second to hastily stuff my sleeping bag into it. I slunk out of the alley into the dimly-lit side street, moving through the shadows to the best place I could think of; the abandoned railroad yard just a mile or so away.

  
A half-hour later I shakily crawled into the back of a hollow freight cart, curling into one of its frigid corners after carefully checking for city-skulking animals or other unpleasant surprises. The world around me was silent, but my head spun as I settled deeper under a mound of clothes, the cloak collar wrapped tightly over my nose and ears. All around me was the smell of that tall man, that terrifying and confusing man. What was his real name? Was he a criminal? What was all that talk about sheep and revolution and 'waiting just a few months'? I ran my tongue over my teeth; any average person would discard him as a rogue crazy, or more likely report him to the authorities. But I was not normal. I was angry enough for all of London, and sick to shit of this life, these people, those fucking cameras that stared and stared and scared even the children of this nation absolutely shitless. For the first time in ages, I felt a second heartbeat next to mine, another quiet voice telling me something was very wrong with this world. He promised me change. I tasted that promise, held it close, and locked it in my heart. And I burned for more.

  
I felt the iron chains of exhaustion wind their way up my ankles and willingly relaxed into them, the rusted walls around me blurring and fading. At least I knew one thing. _That man is very, very important, and I will not forget him._

  
I did not feel alone anymore.

 

 


	2. Rubbish Bins and Violence

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Just as things were getting better, I had to haul off and be some kind of idiotic ideal of a hero.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> There is very little V/Reader interaction in the first few chapters, but I promise there will be an enormous amount to come past chapter 4 when the story shifts drastically. Also, I think i'm starting to write reader as someone who refuses to put up with any vague bullshit and will call anybody out.

It had been months since I was bowed to by a grinning man in the dark of winter, and things had changed for the better. The morning after I woke up in the empty train-car and repacked my bags to start moving for the day, I had the brilliant idea to check the inner pockets of V's long cloak. The heart that once pounding away underneath my ribs dropped into the soles of my shoes as I withdrew my fist from the large pocket, holding 500 pounds worth of crumpled currency. Maybe he meant for me to have the money, maybe he didn't. But I saw what it meant for me.

  
I opened my arms and grabbed the opportunity around the waist, and didn't let go.

  
Within the hour I had soaked in the showers of a local hostel, a bed rented for myself for two weeks and a freshly laundered shirt on my back. The next two days were spent walking around with my crutch under-arm and petitioning local grocers or small shop owners to offer me a part time position; I was basically willing to take any job that was thrown at me. I did get one, eventually, as a shelf restocker and bathroom cleaner at a gas station three blocks away. I spent that night laying on my rented bed in a room full of strangers, grinning like a madwoman into my pillow.

  
The jobs I took were terrible, it's true. But I went into the grocery store every Wednesday and bought a green apple caramel lollipop, and sat and ate in outside by the town square sculpture. I loved the smell of the 'fresh field' scented detergent pods they gave out at the quarter-per-load laundromat. I sat on the swings of a park and people-watched instead of huddling behind a thick bush for the day and hoping for the best. It wasn't perfect; far from it. But there were beautiful things I could do, and I couldn't stop seeing them everywhere. It was all okay.

  
I kept V's cloak close through everything, folded neatly into a perfect square and tucked into the storage space under the bed. On nights when my knee swelled excruciatingly, or customers were inhumane and evil and the whole world was falling apart around me, I opened up that storage unit and stared at the familiar sleek black material, and smelled cloves. _I'm not alone_ , I'd repeat until my lips were numb, _I'm not alone_. It comforted me, knowing he existed somewhere out there. At the same time, however, I remembered that face, those broad shoulders and glittering knives. There was something about him; something off, something wrong. The more sensible part of me knew this, and I hoped I would never run into him again in this life.

 

* * *

 

  
"Take the trash out, it smells like shit." The station cashier said, idly scratching his acne-scarred face. I put down the Pringles cans I had been restocking with a resigned sigh. He wasn't even talking about the bathroom trash; he was talking about his own personal trash behind the counter where he chucked the remains of the snacks he constantly pigged out on when there were no customers in the store. I snatched up the forearm crutch I had traded in for the previous old armpit one, tucked the small bin under my arm, and pushed open the back door with my shoulder into the back area.

  
Summer in England wasn't blazing hot, but occasionally we got days that really made your shirt stick to your skin. This was one of those days. Thankfully the angry sunlight had already changed to the deep twilight of the evening, and flies buzzed in the warm air over the sound of city traffic. I was just lifting the lid of the dumpster when I heard it; a noise I recognized from nights long ago hiding in a darkened corner and waiting for day, a noise I hoped I wouldn't have to ever hear again. It was the sound of a high scream that started off loud, and abruptly cut off. Long forgotten fear immediately froze within my insides, jagged edges cutting into my stomach painfully. The shriek sounded like it was just a street over, in the back-alley far away from the main road. Like some blind magnet led to a chunk of glistening iron, I set down the trash can and walked around the corner and down the street. _I'm being a fool_ , I screamed inside my own head, _and if I don't turn around right this second i'm going to regret it for the rest of my life._

  
I walked into the back alley and immediately felt sick.

  
There, in the half shadows, stood a man with his arms braced against the concrete wall, repeatedly bending his leg back and kicking with an audible grunt. I couldn't see what he was kicking, there was an oil drum in the way. But I could see the flailing legs of someone on the ground. I could hear the screams that had faded to broken wet gasps every time a blow landed.

  
I was paralyzed, white-knuckle gripping the tiny metal trash bin, mind filled with blank television static and ears beginning to ring. My horrified gaze was interrupted by a second man stepping in front of me, weak-chinned face pulled back in some artificial semblance of a grin as he reached into his breast pocket to pull out a slick leather badge.

  
"Sorry, madam. Fingermen business." He said, breath hot on my face. He smelled rancid, but I didn't notice it. All I could see, all I could hear, was those exhaled grunts and the thud of a foot landing. Thud. Thud. Thud.

  
_I was back in the park I stayed in during my first few weeks of having nowhere at all to stay, holding a bottle of gatorade an acquaintance had given me and staring up at the stars through the foliage. For the first time in days, I was surrounded by a few people all talking quietly among themselves. They told me the strip of land between the high-walled hedges and the unattended lot in the park was one of the places nobody would ever bother you, so they often gathered here in twos or threes to say hello and help one another. My acquaintance, a middle-aged woman wrapped in a black parka was just turning to me and opening her mouth to speak when her entire body jerked backwards violently and she screamed. In less that a millisecond, what felt like thousands of fingermen materialized out of thin air, grabbing people by the shoulders or the heads. The air was filled with screams and a flurry of motion in the semidarkness, and I bolted to my feet, heart in my throat and racing faster than I'd ever felt before. I dove into the bushes, scrambling out and away past my acquaintance, who was on her stomach in front of a fingerman. I finally broke through the foliage, sprinting away faster than I ever thought I could run, but I still heard it. The thud of a heavy fingermen shoe against her rib cage. Thud. Thud. Thud._

  
"-Are you even listening to me? Get the fuck out of here, goddamn-" The Fingerman in front of me leered, yellow teeth close to my face. His sentence stopped short as I brought the empty metal bin up as hard as I could, catching him under the jaw and hearing his teeth snap together audibly. The blow rang out hollowly, and his legs buckled underneath him. Immediately blood started to dribble from his mouth.

  
"You crazy bi-" He started again, rising, only to be struck across the right side of the head again with the base of the metal bin I swung down. I felt nothing but a dull ringing in my ears, and a burning in my chest. Then I saw the man with his arms against the wall slow his violent kicking, and start to turn towards me.

  
The ringing was replaced with yelling. Who it came from I couldn't tell, but it was angry, harsh, anguished. Before the second fingerman had a chance to react, I strode over to him, lifted both arms, and shoved him with all the physical force I could muster. If this didn't work, I was fucked. I had the fighting expertise of a sea cucumber. 

  
The fingerman fell backwards and didn't put his arms out in time, cracking his head against the cement floor, and then everything was silent. The man curled up against the wall next to me groaned, but started to push himself into a sitting position with his arms. When my eyes locked with his bruise-circled ones, I knew I had just managed to make both the best and worst decision of my entire life. My body started to quake as cold panic set in. _Oh fuck. No. What the fuck. What have I done. What did I just do._ The man slowly pointed to the corner of a building opposite of the alleyway, and I followed his line of sight as I started to shake more and more violently.

  
A blinking red camera was mounted on the building wall, looking directly down into the little alley. It's confirmed. _I've just made the stupidest decision of my entire life._

  
The fingermen, though out cold and probably concussed, had seen me. The camera had seen me assaulting two men working directly under our great nation's Leader. The camera had also seen my full face, and where I had walked in from.

  
I figured I had maybe five minutes before a police car pulled up to take me away, for real this time.

 

* * *

 

  
It took me three minutes and thirty seconds to crutch-walk down a few cross-streets and into my hostel I currently lived at. It took another thirty seconds to walk into the room, rip all my belongings out of the storage locker, stuff them into a bag, and leave. Forty-five more seconds after that I was stepping under a main road underpass, brain buzzing in a muted panic as I silently totaled all the cameras in the vicinity and where they pointed. _Two on Ivy Court. Three on the rail crossroad, but pointed southeast towards the neighborhood._ I kept myself hunched in crowds as I crossed streets, sticking to underneath shop rain-covered and into shortcut alleyways when I had the chance. Every passing footstep and turning car sent white-hot waves of anxiety crawling across my skin. _One on the roundabout. Two on the bridge. One between the deli shop and the mechanic._

  
I didn't stop moving for what felt like years. Not until I got where I needed to go.

  
It was hours deep into the cloudless night when I finally made it to the train yard, leaning against a decommissioned freight car and catching my breath. Gnats swarmed around my sweaty face in the muggy air, and tears prickled in my eyes, full of fear and anger and discomfort. I was so close. I was so _fucking close_ to pulling myself out of the cycle of barely having any money, of having no place to go. I was building savings, waiting to become the cashier of that mini-mart. Now all I could do is rest the back of my head against the train and feel my throat constrict with the knowledge that I could never have my face on a camera again unless I wanted to be taken away. The pebbles underneath my foot squeaked in protest against me grinding my heel deep into the ground. _Where would I go now? Where could I even get food from that didn't have eyes or ears on it? What is next for me? Anything?_ I clamped my teeth down on my lip to keep the word from spilling out. _Nothing. Nothing, nothing, nothing._

 

* * *

 

  
I sat on the decommissioned subway platform on the edge of the train yard, leg dangling over the side of the concrete wall, towards the dead rails. The yawning opening into the subway tunnel a few hundred feet away stood dark and still, the tracks rolling into its inky center like a tongue on some great big beast. The only light came from a single plastic-capped bulb over a bench behind me, flickering occasionally. Looks like someone forgot to turn all the breakers off before terminating the subway project and leaving the place to fall apart. That thought somehow made me sad, and I curled my knees up to my chest, hugging them close against the soft wind that whistled across the rail yard. Maybe I'd just stay here until I fell apart into nothing too and blew away on the night air.

  
Then I heard it again. Distant footsteps. The one sound in my life that I never could escape; those endless and repeating thuds against the ground would be the death of me.

  
I bolted upwards, pack already on, twisting wildly side to side on the station platform as I tried to determine the origin of the distant footfalls. They were closing in, fast, and I realized that they echoed a small amount. There was only one place here that could reverberate sound in that way, and the prospect of someone emerging from it sent chills of alarm up my spine. I whipped around to face the void opening of the subway tunnel, poised and ready to bolt at a moment's notice like some frightened grade-schooler.

  
I saw him again. It was that man, V. Walking straight out of the old subway tunnel in the same mask, hat, and cloak (how many cloaks does this man have?), and carrying a large black duffel bag by his side. I was frozen in place, watching him glide down the old rails with his eyes on the ground in front of him, his boots making that distinct and distant thud, thud, thud. It felt like there were rocks in my throat; he was about 100 feet away now.

  
"You!" I caught myself saying loudly. Seeing that mask again; it made something inside of me angry and very very sad all at once and I couldn't quite place why. I had hoped that I would only meet him once, but another wicked facet of me always watched every shadow in the night in hopes of seeing him again, if not just to prove that it wasn't some wicked fever dream. The figure in the distance halted, slowly bringing his head up to stare at me in the moonlight.

  
"Me." He responded, muffled by the distance between us. Why, of all places, would he be here, in a dead train yard? He was infuriatingly unreadable, not giving me a single clue or scrap of information as to what he was thinking, yet alone feeling. After a beat of silence my eyes widened; I still had his cloak from before. It might be best to return it to its owner. Leaning heavily on my crutch, I used my free hand to rummage through the disorganized mes within my side pack and pull out the crisply folded item of clothing and held it up for him to see.

  
"I have your cloak, if you uh, want it back." I called, moving forward with it. Maybe heading over to him and placing it in his hands would break the weird tension in the night air. Maybe it would make him feel more like a real person and less like a bogeyman. It felt like eons before I walked down the concrete steps at the end of the platform and stood in front of him, folded cloak thrusted out towards him awkwardly. He made no move to take it. I wished he would just grab the stupid thing so I could stop feeling like I owed him something.

  
"I don't need it." He said, gesturing to his own identical one.

  
I shook the cloak for emphasis. "Just take it back, please."

  
" 'The simplest acts of kindness are by far more powerful than one thousand heads bowed in prayer.' ", V replied, "You need it. Keep it. No one ever grew poor by giving."

  
"I don't need your pity." I retorted hotly. I don't know why, but his insistence that I continue to have the cloak made me hot under the collar. "You helped me, and I appreciate that. But i'm not some sort of hapless victim who needs you to rob the rich and give to the poor. Take your damn cloak."

  
He was silent for a moment, but I could feel his eyes traveling up and down, taking in my clothing, my bag, my arm crutch, and my soured facial expression. "Something unfortunate has just happened to you." He observed, casting aside my insistence that he take his clothing back.

  
This man may have funded my clawing myself back into the edges of society, but by god was he irritating as all hell. "Really?" I replied dryly, "What gave it away?"

  
"Dare I state the distinct lack of normalcy that is sitting alone in an abandoned station at night?"

  
My lips pressed themselves together into an irritated scowl. "Yeah, being driven away from your home and job for doing you civic duty will do that. As far as I'm concerned, this might be my new apartment, for better or for worse."

  
" 'All great changes are proceeded by Chaos.' ", V quoted. His voice sounded like a schoolteacher's smile, but there was nothing to smile at here in the night air. He paused for a moment, mask gazing up at the starry sky as summer wind pulled at his hair. "Tell me, how attached are you to the notion of sunlight and open skies?"

  
I was visibly taken aback. "They're...nice, I suppose? Why do you ask?"

  
"I believe I know of a place you'll find more comfortable than the floor of a station." He said, dipping his head slightly.

  
Great. Excellent. There he goes again, giving me something that I couldn't provide myself with. I could smell a hero complex a mile away. "Thanks," I practically spat, my hackles raised, "But I really don't want or need anybody's charity because they see me as a pity project. I can watch out for myself." I was tired, hungry, and already frustrated with my current situation enough without this man's handouts.

  
"How someone feels towards you should never impact your opinion of opportunities. If I pitied you, it would change nothing. Always take what you are given and use it to the best of your ability. 'If a window appears, I will never roll the curtain down out of fear of what may linger on the other side.' " He looked down at his duffel bag for a brief moment. "My plans can stand to be postponed for a brief period of time. Come." With that single word, he turned on heel and disappeared into the inky dark of the tunnel mouth. _Am I really going to follow him?_ One part of me asked myself, eyebrows raised in disbelief. I'd have to either be a gullible idiot or have some semblance of a death wish to make this stupid of a decision.

  
My heart rate kicked up as I stepped into the inky dark, seeing nothing and hearing even less. Panic speared my guts. _This was a mistake. This is a dangerous man and I am playing a dangerous game and I'm turning around right now-_

  
A large hand lightly laid itself on the back of my upper arm, and I was suddenly made aware that the space next to me was not occupied by shadows, but by V, guiding me forward, deeper and deeper into the black.

  
_Was I being a gullible idiot?_   Yes. yes I was.

  
We went underground. 


	3. Some Sort of Tunnel-Dwelling Magician

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Stupid vigilantes and their stupid faces.

We walked for ages through the tunnel, my eyes barely adjusted enough to make out where there were spaces to walk and where there were places to fall. A hand constantly on my arm, I was guided through endless twists and turns, through rusty ancient doors and down ladder hatches (which were some of the more embarrassing parts of the journey; I couldn’t make my way down ladders safely in the dark, so V resorted to going down before me and placing two hands on my hips to guide me down). To distract myself from the smell of wet stone and the realization of how far we were under the crushing weight of the earth, I peppered the tall man with relentless questions about where he was taking me, how he could navigate so well in the dark, why he was taking me somewhere, and what was in his duffel bag (he answered the last one with ‘oh, it’s my orchestra’). After a solid 45 minutes of walking I couldn’t help but get the sense that he was moving me about like some elementary school student on a field trip to a place I had never been before. _You know,_ my brain piped up as we crossed over another set of derelict train tracks, _If he suddenly decided to walk away from you down here, you would never find your way out._

I tightly gripped a handful of the fabric of his cloak beside me after that.

It took what I guessed was another 45 minutes of walking to reach our destination.

“ ‘Home is quantified not by the place or the people, but by the feeling inspired within once entered.’ “ V quoted, twisting open the wheel handle on a small iron door in front of us, and stepping inside. I was about to ask what the hell he was on about when I was absolutely blinded by the flick of a switch and harsh yellow light. I threw my arm up in front of my eyes, blinking furiously, given no time to react before I was pulled through to the other side of the door. After a few moments of squinting and making a very discontented noise, I finally fully saw where we were. And I gasped.

We were standing in a home. Well, very transparently not a home, but I knew somehow that this place was very precious to someone. About the size of a small apartment, this place tucked away in the bowels of the underground subway was furnished with ratty rugs and posters yellowed with age, along with a small kitchen with a basic sink, a tiny dining table tucked into a corner, the barest furnishings of a living room, and an alcove in the back where I could just make out a cot. The walls were made of uncovered concrete similar to the floor. Everything had a fine layer of dust on it, including the few bare light bulbs wired cleverly into an electrical cord running along the ceiling.

“While certainly not a place of grandeur, it should serve your needs adequately.” V said, and I turned to see him standing by the light switch, running one gloved finger across a cupboard and inspecting the dust on its tip.

“Who lives here?” I reply, thumbing the strap of my bag nervously.

V spoke with an exhale in his voice. “I did, a long time ago. I left as soon as I found quarters more… suited to my personal needs.” He gestured widely with one arm to the home, inviting me to set my bag down and look about. As soon as I finally stopped hovering by the door, he continued to speak. “The bathroom isn’t the most elegant of places, and for that I’m sorry. I had to make do with what rudimentary plumbing there was.”

I sit down heavily on the couch in the middle of the room. A puff of dust rises up. “What was this place?”

“Documents say maintenance and storage, but that begs the question as to why a storage room has so much plumbing.”

“And you want me to… what, live here?” V was silent in response to my inquiry, hands folded as he gazed right at me. Waiting. Waiting for what? It took a few moments for it to click and for me to remember. “Right, yes.” I started up again, “Your whole speech about how the opinions and wants of others shouldn’t impact the opportunities given to you.” I gnawed on my lip; he was giving me a choice. I couldn’t help but feel like my decision to stay or go was more important than just choosing to live here. As I pondered my decision I realized I had naturally nestled into a divet in the foam pads of the couch. Someone had rested here for a very long time; maybe they were reading, or working, or sleeping. Someone had been here for ages, which means this place meant something. It meant this place wasn’t a room, but a home. As soon as I realized that, I knew I didn’t have a choice but to take up V’s offer.

“Yes. Yes, I would love to live here. Thank you so much.” I finally said, turning to face him. Despite the fact that this place was tucked away in dark weaving corridors and far away from everyone else, it was better than constantly being scared shitless by the prospect of awaking to several fingermen standing over me. Plus, I had a large military-grade locking door of 4-inch thick iron. I didn’t ask about where I should be getting food or supplies; i’d be damned if I took anything more from him. I lived in the subway system, not on some desert island. There would be ways to get what I needed.

V nodded, unreadable as ever, and I was hit with the overwhelming temptation to stalk across the room and pull that mask off, just for the satisfaction of seeing if he was smiling or not. Saying nothing, he picked up his duffle bag from the floor and reached for the door handle.

“Wait.” I interjected, standing up. His gloved hand hovered right above the door wheel. “Do you live around here? Will-” I pause, running my tongue across my teeth, “Will I see you again, ever?”

“I live quite a few neighborhoods over. Same town, different district, if you will.” The wheel creaked under his hand as he opened the door, cold and damp air spilling into the room from the darkness outside. “ ‘I do not believe in coincidence, for Lady Fate is much more cunning than I’. I’m certain you will hear from me again. Farewell, for parting is such sweet sorrow.” He stepped through the door, white mask floating in the black tunnel.

“Huh, a quote I’ve heard before.” I said loudly as the door closed, “You must be slipping!” The hatch creaked shut with an enormous groan, and all the sound that was left was the faint buzzing of the fluorescent bulbs overhead. I sighed and pulled my beanie off my head, relaxing into the couch. Here I was; home sweet home, and I had no idea how to even get out. I was just about to unpack my bag into the various different cupboards and drawers scattered around when I realized, with no small amount of frustration, that V had left the old cloak folded neatly on the dining table. I grimaced.

“Fuck’s sake.”

 

* * *

 

It took me three days to get used to the new home I was unexpectedly gifted. Firstly, unpacking all my items led to me discovering lots of things younger V left here before he moved on; a bar of unscented soap, a dish towel embroidered with the picture of a marigold, a digital clock, a functioning radio with enormous receiver antenna, and a book labeled simply ‘Kama Sutraa’.) When I pulled the book from one of the many shelves in the living room, I nearly fell over laughing picturing the prim and proper gentleman that is V sitting politely on a reading chair with a cup of tea, reading this banned piece of literature like any other. I couldn’t breathe when I envisioned him haughtily quoting it like he did with his other vague Shakespearean references.

Next came basic renovations. I dusted the living hell out of everything in sight, scrubbed the floors clean, reorganized the bookshelves, and took written stock of every supply and asset in the house. While cleaning under the bed in the back alcove, I found an incredible asset that made me gasp; an extremely old fold-out map of the subway underground and sewer system. Upon further inspection I saw many of the paths weren’t originally printed on the paper, but inked in with a pen. Along with those alterations to the map, I found notes jotted down in long and elegant writing along the borders: V had written tips and reminders about places on the map that were circled or crosshatched. Things like “floods in winter”, and “Close to active station, keep noise down” were scrawled all over. There were scattered ink dots attached to arrows everywhere which confused me a create deal until I realized what they were: surface camera notations. “Oh V, you clever man.” I breathed, grazing over the indicators with the pad of my thumb and a smile on my face, realizing that he had to learn where everything was at some point too. I could picture him sitting on the couch with the map on the coffee table, hunched over and committing paths to memory, making slight alterations to the paper for tunnels not included in it. V built himself his life underground with this document. Despite my endless irritation with that man, it made me a bit warmer inside to know that he wasn’t some faceless enigma.

On day three I had to finally admit to myself that I needed to go exploring and find what I could by skulking on the borders of the city. I was running out of toilet paper, and had sustained myself on the unexpired yet dusty canned goods in the very back of one of the cupboards. After spiffing up with a nice shower (added to the list of things to get; shampoo), pouring over the railway line notes V supplied me with (second supply addition: get pens and paper), and a change of clothes I had washed in the sink (Needed some detergent, too) I was out the door armed with a small reading light from the nightstand and the map folded up in my back pocket.

The first excursion was a complete disaster. In the tunnels that weren’t lit I stumbled and lost my footing, and in the tunnels that _were_ lit I was too paranoid of being discovered to do anything but slink on through as fast as possible. I got lost four times, each one spiking my heart rate with the realization that if I didn’t find my way out I would die down here. It got so bad at one point that I sat down on the side of the rails and scrutinized the whole map over twice to make sure I wasn’t heading in the wrong direction. I finally reached the closest surface entry at around two in the morning (an anxious precaution so I wouldn’t be caught). I slid open a grate underneath a road that passed over a river, wriggling out of it with all the dignity and grace of a beached codfish. Still, as I stood up and dusted myself off, I couldn’t help but feel a sense of overwhelming pride. I fucking did it. I was thrown face-first into an environment and situation I knew nothing about, and I overcame it. I could pop up all over the city like some sort of tunnel-dwelling magician. That white-hot sense of pride evaporated as soon as I heard the sound of night-watch footsteps making their rounds across the street above me. I scrambled back into the grate entrance, heart pounding in my ears. _No supplies tonight, I suppose._

  
The second night was better. I raided two grocery dumpster bins (it was well known to me that stores had a nasty habit of throwing out food that was expired by just one day), and decided that next time I should bring a bigger bag. When I got home I celebrated with a plastic tin of stale cookies, dancing by myself in nothing but a pajama shirt and underwear to some cassettes V had left stacked by the radio.

  
The third night was even better. As was the fourth, the fifth, and the sixth. I started relying on my map less and less, growing more accustomed to identifying shapes in the semidarkness and navigating ring ladders with one leg. I started collecting trinkets for my new abode; wind chimes and adverts from telephone poles and strings of lights filched from an open garage door. Everything was really starting to come together, and this room under the earth began to feel like a home to me. I even had one potted African Violet flower under a grow-light on my desk.

  
The seventh night scared me shitless. I was out of the tunnels in an industrial part of town, looking for a hardware store, when I heard what sounded like a distant peal of thunder, but long and chilling. It sounded like a bomb, and bombs meant people would be out of their homes and poking around any minute. I was already headed back to the manhole I came out of when the boom was followed by the crackling sound of fireworks. "What the hell?" I murmured, and risked a quick peek around the corner down the main street. The cloudy night sky was lit up in the distance by red and orange flames, and on top of it... _there was an enormous red V, drawn in crackling light_. "Aw, what the hell." I said, much louder this time. _I knew it, I FUCKING KNEW IT, I just didn't want to admit it to myself because he helped me_ , I was screaming inside my own head as I clambered down the ring ladder and dropped to the sewer tunnel below, _He's a nutjob. No, he's more than that: he's a fucking terrorist. Who else would run around acting like they have some grand old plan, hiding in the tunnels like some bat creature? Who else would blow up a building and stamp their name across the fucking thing?_ I splashed across the dingy water and lifted open a hatch disguised as a bolted metal sheet, stepping through the hole into a familiar subway tunnel. _I'm going to smack that man if he ever shows up on my doorstep._ As I plodded home empty-handed, I seethed. I hadn't been able to get him off my mind ever since he stepped out of my house, and I hated that I still wanted to see his stupid smiling face again.

  
I felt betrayed.


	4. Right Under My Nose

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Bollocks. Here comes that masked man again.

I had made a very big mistake.

  
I got too cocky. I thought that after the months of success, of gliding around in shadows, of learning to move silently and quickly with a cane, of listening to radio broadcasts in my personal apartment, and making off with supplies and materials from all across the enormous city, that I was safe. But I fumbled, I didn't scout out the back of a shop as well as I should have, and a burglar siren was going off before I even knew what was happening. The pack of lightbulbs I was inspecting dropped to my feet, and I bolted from the aisle as quick as I could.

I guess I was moving too fast; I rounded the corner and crashed face-first into metal rack holding all sorts of construction supplies, and I fell. I couldn't see what it was in the darkness of the closed store, but a rogue piece of utility equipment's sharp edge snagged on my wrist, ripping my arm from mid-forearm to shoulder and making me scream in blind pain as I went down.  _Oh god._ My whole right arm was immediately covered in hot blood that I could physically feel dribbling onto the dark floor. I took a half second to blindly pull off my over-shirt and wrap it tightly around my arm to slow the flow as much as possible. I got up, stumbling, moving blindly out the back door and down the street, down two blocks in the shadows and into the blackness of a large storm drain on the bank of the near river. I didn't stop running until I had passed three corners and dropped down a rung ladder. I was powered by adrenaline and the screaming panic that made it hard to breath.

  
"Fuck, fuck, fuck-" I chanted, leaning against a curved wall and fishing the reading light out of my pocket. In its dim white light, I saw the true extent of the damage even under the shirt; almost completely soaked and heavy with blood, my extremities cold and shaking. The pain screamed and gnashed its teeth at me, locking up my joints with its venomous bites. "Fuck." I said again. There was bile in my throat. I had to get home right now. Home was where the clotting spray was. Home was were the suture tape was. I just had to make it home. I put the reading light away and started moving as fast as I could.

  
Ten minutes later I knew I wouldn't make it. I was so dizzy that the dimly-lit fluorescent train tunnel spun around me, and any feeling I had left in my hands had faded to a dull buzz. To top it all off, I was still a twenty minute walk away from my doorstep.

_Huh. The floor's a lot closer now,_ I observed as I buckled and fell to the floor.

  
_Is this how i'm gonna die? On the train tracks of a hall only two people have visited in the last 80 years?_   I inhaled shakily, feeling the grimy build-up on the rails in the back of my throat. _And to think, I didn't even ever get to tell V my name. He asked so politely, too. That bastard._

  
_V,_ my brain said in an urgent tone. _V lives down here, too. I want V. I want V, right now._  I groaned, cheek mashed against the cold floor as I gathered my strenght. "V..." I called softly, voice echoing in the metallic walls of the subway. "V..." I called again, louder this time. "Please help me. Please."

My own voice rang back to me, and the florescent flickered.

 

* * *

 

  
I didn't know how long I drifted in and out of consciousness for, shivering and panting with dry and cracked lips. Minutes? Hours? It felt like an eternity. I just wanted the pain to be gone. I just wanted to stop bleeding. I would do anything to stop this colony of bullet ants attacking my muscles.

I was ready to die.

  
It must have been around three hours later when I heard the sound that always seemed to drive the story of my life forward forever onward; footsteps. Slow, taking their time, echoing distantly ahead in the tunnel. Was it V? Or was it someone else, come to arrest me? Had I dribbled blood all the way down to the storm drain, led them straight to the den of the beast? Maybe. But that hardly mattered, not any more. All I could do was conjure a weak moan; more like a breath than a sound. The footsteps, once slow, quickened slightly. I could practically taste them searching, looking, hunting for the source of the noise. The sharp tap of shoes changed from a walk to a run, coming from the...left? The left. I wanted to smile but my face was too cold to listen to anything I told it to do. _Peekaboo. Here I am,_ I thought tiredly as someone rounded the tunnel corner just ten feet away, _You solved my puzzle. You've won a prize! It's me._

I would have laughed, if could have.  _Kind of a shitty prize._

  
Someone jumped off the walking platform and landed beside me. I felt a gloved hand run over my head and brush my hair away from my face, and another one set down two fingers on my injured arm. The touch woke my sleeping nerves, which screaming and thrashed and desperately begged for release from this torture. I protested the touch with a guttural moan, eyes still gummed shut. The hands ceased their touches and I heard an unsteady inhale above me. Two hands pushed themselves under my body, lifting me up and holding me against someone's broad chest like I was a child. So it was a man, then. I knew that at least. I felt us moving, walking fast, each step sending excruciating waves of pain down my appendage; I just wanted to be asleep again, was that so much to ask of the universe? I turned my head slightly to the side, cheek mashing into the shoulder of whoever was carrying me. I smelled cloves, and wood smoke.

  
_Oh. It's **him.**_

  
V's hair tickled my nose as it moved back and forth to the gait of his walk. Out of the two kinds of people that could have found me, I still wasn't sure that this was the preferred option. My eyes refused to open, so I took a moment and let myself go still and limp in his arms, scraping together any strength I had left. I could hear his heartbeat through his chest; slow, strong, and steady. He wasn't afraid, and somehow that comforted me. After a few minutes of the rhythmic swaying, I spoke.

  
"V." I groaned. He said nothing, but I knew he was listening. With the last bit of strength I had, I moved my head up as far as I could, and I whispered my name beside his ear.

  
As soon as my cheek hit his shoulder again, I was asleep.

 

* * *

 

  
I came around with a killer headache, and a sharp consonant on my lips. Before I even opened my eyes I knew where I was: laying face-up on my couch in the living room, my hurt arm feeling tight and hot and elevated on a pillow. _I'm really not going to like what I see when I open my eyes,_ I thought to myself. But this is the sort of thing (like terror attacks, outbreaks of flu, and life-threatening wounds) that you can't ignore forever. So I opened my eyes, blinking away the crust and readily scoping out the room around me. _How did I get here?_ My eyes landed on my arm. _OK, not as good as I hoped, but not as bad as I pictured._ The entire length of it was wrapped in gauze, small browning splotches of blood seeping through. I moved my arm a centimeter and was made violently and painfully aware of the pinch of stitches. _Someone stitched me,_ I thought hazily, eyes continuing to scan the apartment. I turned my head to face the kitchen behind me. _Who could have-_

  
Right. V. Explains why i'm covered in two cloaks.

  
He stood in my kitchen, back turned to me, head swaying almost imperceptibly to the low sound of the jazz cassette he was playing. He was without his normal outerwear and was sporting some sort of tight-fitting vest with flowing dress-shirt arms; his wide-brimmed hat sat on the kitchen table next to a cardboard parcel. Even on whatever drugs he put me on, I could frown angrily. _He's touching my shit. I didn't say he could touch my shit._

  
_Didn't he carry you all the way back to your home, stop your bleeding, stitch you up, and give you pain relievers?_ A second voice chastised myself in my head.

  
_...Still didn't say he could touch my shit._ Sure, he may have just descended from the heavens like some sort of twisted angel and found me in the nick of time, saving my life, but he was still a terrible man who had done terrible stuff. The explosion... I could still see the bright heat of it burning behind my eyelids. _What kind of person is THAT destructive?_ The things they said about him on the radio... it made my blood cold to remember it all. And now he was standing in my kitchen, dancing to my music, and... wait, what was he even doing in there? With some effort and a few strained grunts, I pushed myself into a sitting position.

  
"Down." I heard him say from across the apartment, over the sound of something sizzling. He didn't even turn around; how did he know? A word floated to the top of my brain from my time in medical school: _kinesthesia._ That word was promptly dumped in the trash because I was too tired and too confused to process it right now.I grumbled to myself and laid back down, clearing my dry throat after not speaking for only god knows how long.

  
"How long have I been asleep?" I said, speaking to the wall beside me in a gravelly tone.

  
"You've been out cold for eight hours," V replied as something shifted and crackled in the pan he was using, "But resting comfortably for six. I had to wait for the bleeding to die down a bit before injecting you."

  
My tongue was so dry. "Injecting me...with what?"

  
"Morphine." His voice was right behind me, a gloved hand coming into view and setting a tall glass of orange juice on the coffee table. "Drink."

  
Him and his one word demands. _Who does he think he is, the Leader?_ I was tempted to push the glass away despite how delicious it looked, and then I remembered this was the same man the evening news talked about in angry and fearful tones, preaching his indiscriminate violence and pyromaniacal nature. I wasn't one to be too involved with regular civilian affairs, but clearly he was a much darker figure with a much longer shadow than I realized when last met him. I picked up the glass and sipped at it quietly for a few minutes. Behind me I heard the scrapes and bangs of pans and cooking utensils, along with the steady chop of a knife on the cutting board. I hadn't seen so much as a single hair from V for over three months, and now he shows up out of the blue, pulling my ass out of the fire and mincing what i'm fairly certain is garlic in my kitchen. What the hell is he? What's his motive? Who's side is he even on?

  
"I don't pick sides because there are no sides to choose from. There is good and there is evil, and evil is not a choice, but a sickness." He says, and I heard a pan hiss under the cold faucet water. I winced. Was I really out of it enough to say that last part out loud? _Great. Now I'M the ass._ V picked something up from the counter and moved into my line of sight. He was holding one of my mismatched plastic plates, and it was covered in...holy shit, latkes. I hadn't had any of those since potatoes were added to the regulation list.

   
V didn't move to put the plate down. Instead he gestured with an open hand to the orange juice glass I'm holding in my white-knuckled grip. There's still some left in the cup, and it's pretty clear he's adamant about me drinking the whole thing as directed. _He's giving me tasks to do like i'm seven years old_. Is that how he views me? Some waifish and sickly girl he's rescued off the streets, some kid he's sponsored into a better life? Oh man, fuck him.

  
I knocked the rest of the drink back all at once.

  
V set the plate down on the table in one fluid motion as I whispered a hoarse thanks. Every move he makes is so precise and so careful, like he's an actor on a stage, executing every scenario according to his own plans. In control of every aspect of the play. It made me angry in a way that made it hard to breathe.

  
"You can sit down too, you know." I speak into my latkes as I poke them with a plastic spork; I hadn't gotten my hands on any forks yet, and I felt like this was just another point on which he was judging me. I heard the scrape of the desk chair being pulled away from the nearby desk and the creak of him sitting down. Even out of the corner of my eye I saw the way he was posed; shoulders squared, head slightly forward, arms crossed. Again, he looked like a disapproving schoolteacher. I refused to look up from my latkes; if I did, he would try and ask me questions.

  
"You don't have the right to chastise me for anything I've done." I said before he could get a word out.

  
"I wasn't going to." His response is neutral, clipped, and muffled by his mask. "I was simply going to ask why you were up in the city."

  
"Supplies." I answered gruffly with a mouthful of potato; it was really well seasoned and perfectly cooked, but I wasn't keen on dishing out compliments right now. "You know, so I don't die down here."

  
"Why on Earth would you go into the city for supplies?"

  
I couldn't help it, I snapped my gaze up from my dinner to glare at V. "Where do you _think_ supplies come from?"

  
V leveled his gaze at me. "From the parked supply trains a ten minute's walk from here."

  
I choked on my potato, coughing until tears came to my eyes. V simply got up and filled my orange juice glass with water, and set it down before me. I chugged half of it in one go, throat spasming. Despite knowing that there was no way for me to know about this easier path of getting supplies, my face still burned with shame, like I had revealed myself to be an idiot. "You could have told me!"

  
V's normal dramatic persona shattered with the shake of his shoulders; he was laughing, a rolling chuckle that deepened my embarrassment.

  
"Shut up! I was risking my life going up there all those times!" I croaked.

  
"Seven tons of food, three alternating tons of toiletries, two tons of restricted access items-" His voice was full of unabashed laughter, and he lifted the back of his hand up to his masked mouth.

  
I groaned and did the same, only I covered my entire face with spread fingers and wished I could disappear into the couch cushions forever.

   
"-And it was all readily available right under your nose, ripe for the picking." He hung his head, wig shaking as he continued to laugh.

  
"Fuck off." I replied curtly, hand still over my face. I set the latkes down on the table; my appetite was gone. Sure, I was pissed, but that was currently being override by an unfounded yet deep sense of disappointment in myself.

  
"Oh, such foul language," V chastised in sarcastic tone, brushing a gloved hand down the sleeves of his shirt as the laughter started to fade. "I'm sorry if it appears that I am shaming you. I was simply remarking upon the incredible lengths you went to attain everything you needed to survive, despite it being so much easier that you believed. I didn't mean to imply that it was a bad thing, necessarily. Quite extraordinary, in fact, especially from someone such as yourself."

  
I instantly remembered the way he'd treated me like a pitiful orphan. "What's that supposed to mean?" My hand was tight around the spork.

  
"You are down one leg and immersed in an environment of which you know nothing about, and yet you have adapted to it completely. The human ingenuity you continue to display is delightful, and you've made some much progress in this short span of time." He gestured at my wrapped arm. "Save for the occasional slip-up, that is."

  
I looked down at my wrapped arm. Funny... that almost sounded like a compliment. That confusing thought quickly brought up another, and immediately there was another question on my tongue. "Why are you still here? You could have just stitched me up and left."

  
His response was immediate. "I've crossed paths with you three separate times now, in none of which I was seeking you. Even a fool would come to the obvious conclusion that Lady Fate is ever insistent in me returning to you again and again, so I thought it best to run with the course that fortune has deemed fitting." After a brief beat of silence he clapped his gloved hands together, rising from his chair. "Ah yes, that reminds me." He crossed back over to the kitchen table and retrieved the long cardboard box as he spoke. "I took the liberty of procuring this from an anonymous source. Hopefully it will decrease the risk of an accident such as this from occurring again, and will also serve as a gift in my absence." The box was placed in my lap unceremoniously; it was surprisingly weighty. My brows knit as I remembered the harsh words from the radio when it came to discussing this masked man. The violence. The accusations. The  _hatred._

  
"V, where did you get t-"

  
"Rest assured, the previous owner will no longer be requiring its services." V replied quickly, flicking both hands to urge me to open the box. I did, with a resigned sigh, and pulled open the cardboard flaps. 

"Oh, V." I murmured.

   
It was a lower leg prosthetic. Not like the temporary ones used after amputation rehabilitation; this one was sleek, made of polished metal and insulated springs. It curved backwards and had a long foot stippled with high-grip plastic. The imagery was overall similar to the leg of a kangaroo. The socket at the top was gel-padded, and as I used my hand to lift and inspect the many straps attached to it, I realized a silicon sleeve would wrap tightly around my thigh and hook itself to a soft waist-belt for support. I was at a total loss for words.

  
"Do you like it?" V interrupted my marveling over the limb and I turned to face him, anger momentarily discarded. His hands were folded in front of himself once more, head tilted in that expressionless and irritating way.

  
"Yes. Oh my god, V, yes. I love it." I said, immediately scrambling to stand and go put it on. At that exact moment , all the blood inside me tilted and suddenly the world was moving in a very odd way around me. My ears began to ring, and as I fell I slammed into V's chest with the dignity and poise of a dead walrus. He wrapped his arms around me to stop me from hitting the concrete as my vision darkened, grunting with effort when he lifted me back up and set me down on the couch.

  
"I'm afraid," He said, breathing impacted from the moving weight he just caught, "That it may have to wait until your body has had time to repair itself further."

  
I blinked quickly and furiously as my vision spottily started to return to me. "No." I insisted, immediately moving to sit back up, "I've been waiting and saving money for a functional prosthetic ever since I had my leg amputated, and now I've had one dumped in my lap. I'm putting the damn leg on." Filled with vigor and need despite the pounding pain in my arm, I immediately started to wiggle out of my short-cropped pants while laying on the couch. In that very same instant, V had turned his back to me and walked into the kitchen faster than I thought was physically possible, proclaiming aloud that he would just "attend to the mess he made, like any proper guest would do".

  
It took a few minutes of fumbling with my left hand to slip and buckle everything into place (V ran out of things to do halfway through and resorted to organizing the knives in the drawer by size), but I finally got the leg equipped and my pants pulled up over it. I swung my legs, now plural, off the side of the couch and immediately felt my head spin. "V," I called out, "You can turn around now. I might need a hand."

  
The masked man slowly rotated to face me. Upon seeing me half off the couch he walked over to offer a hand, which I clutched unhesitatingly in an iron grip. I would be lying if I said trying this didn't make me incredibly nervous. I bent my knees... and stood up on two appendages. Everything felt off. Flat. Stable yet unstable all at once. I rocked forward, quickly losing my gravitational center, and V's other hand flew to the small of my back.

  
We stood together like that for a moment, breathing silently, nervously, waiting for me to get my bearings. I took a step forward. Then another, then another. The curved metal required a bit more positioning and thought than my real leg, but it was springy and gave an ample range of motion for complex movement.

  
"Very good." V breathed encouragingly by my ear as I wobbled to the kitchen sink and back, intently focused on the floor immediately in front of me. I was grinning ear to ear, our human and masked-etched smiles matching. Very gently, V removed his arm from my waist and pulled away. I stood on my own two feet; shakily like a foal, but still all on my own. I looked straight into his dark eyes, beaming. V squared his shoulders, bowing elegantly in response. "Excellent progress, mademoiselle. I'd doff my hat to you if it was within reach."

  
I laughed out loud, crossed both legs, and brought my arms up to curtsy in response.

  
Something underneath thr wrappings of my right arm burst, and I let out a high noise of distress at the overwhelming explosion of pain.

  
I fell to my knees on the cold stone floor with my left hand clutched to my chest in agony. My right arm felt like it had burst into flame. I could barely register V's hands around my waist, lifting me and depositing me on the couch and immediately unwrapping the white gauze of my arm which was soaking red at an alarming rate. The pained cries wouldn't stop as fresh tears streaming down my face. I gasped, choking.

  
"Oh fuck- oh, shit- V, please, V, what's happening-" I said through my teeth, jerking violently as he peeled the last layer of blood-thicked gauze away.

  
"You've torn your stitches. Stay still and look away." He said, voice returning to that same clinical and impassive state it had been in when he first met me. I did as he asked, staring at the ceiling as I felt blood drip down my forearm. Over the hiccuping and choking sobs, I heard V yank off both his gloves and slam open of my my medical emergency kits to find a suture needle. I knew what came next, but it didn't stop me from crying out and biting down on the fabric of my shirt hem every time the needle speared my skin. I had five stitches replaced, and the whole time he was working on them with his strangely rough fingers, he talked to me.

  
"Somehow, during your fall, you managed to damage not only the radial nerve, but the ulnar and median nerve as well." Another stitch, another hoarse cry. "Not to mention the fact that you nicked your brachial artery as well. It explains the abnormally high levels of pain you're experiencing, as well as the initial dramatic blood loss." As I quivered and groaned, some distant and detached part of myself wondered how he knew so much about the human body.

  
When he was finally done all I could do was shake, the ceiling blurring above me with tears. My years at med school did absolutely nothing to prepare me for this. I heard him slip his gloves on once more, and I finally lowered my eyes from the ceiling to see him prepping a very small syringe of pain reliever.

  
"I'm afraid I didn't time your dosages properly, and I let the previous batch wear thin." He turned my left arm over, searching for the injection site, "And for that, I am truly sorry." The words couldn't contain themselves inside his temporary impersonal persona, and came out heavy with real regret.

  
"Hhh- how many milligrams is that?" I said stiffly, "Don't give me- aaugh, 20 or more if i'm injured. That's what they taught us."

  
"It's nineteen." He replied. The needle slipped under my skin.

  
"You're lying." I countered, incredulous and hazy from the pain.

  
"Yes. It's twenty."

  
"I'm-ah, _so glad_ my medical advice means so much to you."

  
V said nothing, but he exhaled heavily as he withdrew the needle. I watched distantly as the masked man elevated my arm on the couch with a pillow, and then retrieved the blanket from my own bed (along with the cloak I still haven't given back), proceeding to tuck me in on the couch with a very unusual amount of tenderness.  _He's being very human,_ I observed warily. My eyelids sagged. I knew it wouldn't be long before I passed out completely, and I called V back over from the sink where he was rinsing out the juice cup.

  
"V. I need you to loosen my prosthetic." I said groggily. I was exhausted, but I knew falling asleep with this thing strapped so tightly on to me would cause bruising; or worse, circulation complications. V stood there, unmoving, hands pressed together. Then i remembered. _Right, he ever the gentleman, and the prosthetic goes all the way up my thigh. That must break all sorts of his 18th century chivalry rules_. I sigh in frustration. "Ok. Just... just lift my shirt up a few inches and release the buckle in the middle of the belt. That should decompress it."

  
"Right. Yes. Alright." He replied hesitantly. I would have laughed at how he was acting if I had the energy; carefully pulling back the blankets and lifting my shirt up centimeter by centimeter, like he was diffusing a bomb. After ages of waiting, he found the buckle and pressed either side, immediately pulling my shirt back down. I sighed as the various straps around my knee went limp.

  
"Thank you." I breathed. He nodded once in response and walked away. I watched him over the armrest as he donned his hat and flung his cloak over his shoulders.

  
"I'll return here tomorrow. Do try and sleep for as much time as you can, and I must advise against gallivanting around on your new leg."

  
"V?" I murmured, "When will you tell me what you are?"

  
I was met with silence.

  
"The things they say on the radio...are they all true?"

  
V sighed. It was an incredibly weighted sound. "I believe this is a conversation best suited for another time."

  
" 'Truth will out'." I baited him with a quote.

  
"Alas, not even the honey-sweet words of Shakespeare himself will coerce me to discuss this tonight. Goodnight, my lady fair." The lights above me flickered off, darkening the apartment save for the soft glow of the blue clock numbers. I heard the heavy door swing open.

  
"Goodnight." I whispered into the blanket.

  
The door swung shut, and I fell asleep. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> We're nearing chapter 5! The pace has finally picked up as Reader learns more about V's mannerisms than she wanted to know.


	5. An Unfair Promise

V kept his word for the next few weeks, showing up and milling around the apartment fixing things in silence. There were moments, however, that were nice. Friendly, even. Sometimes we’d just sit together on the couch and read side by side, or he would bring me interesting and odd vintage cookbooks detailing how to make different casseroles or dinner dishes. There was even a point when we worked up to him showing me the basic steps to swing dancing. I hadn’t seen him move like that ever before: it was beautiful to watch. Despite all that I spent most of my time resting on the cot in the back, but not by choice: every time I showed any sign of overstraining my massive laceration, there was a hand on my shoulder pushing me back to the bed.

 

It became very apparent very quickly that V had no intention of explaining to me anything that he was doing, anything he had done, or what was going up on the surface. He seemed especially keen on it when I mentioned that the radio had broken just a few days ago, and I’d never really paid attention to the political atmosphere anyways. I had no idea what was going up on the surface. V promised me that he would get some new copper wire to replace the broken one in the reciever. He never did.

 

“It may be best,” He mentioned on his third visit in two weeks, “To avoid going into the city for a few months. You have access to all your basic supplies down here.”

 

“What?” I protested from my seat at the kitchen table, crossword puzzle in hand, “Why? Is there anything going on that I should know about?”

 

“As of now, it is not the safest environment. Would you like scallions in your omelette?” He replied, holding a carton of eggs next to the stove. Avoiding my questions, again. And I have no way to access the information myself. He’s walling me into ignorance with my lack of understanding. Why won’t he say anything? What gives him the right to keep appearing and talking to me like we’re family? I don’t even know a simple damn thing about him!

 

“You’re really starting to piss me off, V.” I said, putting the crossword puzzle down. V didn’t stop cracking eggs into the pan.

 

“What are you keeping from me? What’s going on in this country?” Still more silence. The freshly installed cat clock on the wall continued to tick loudly, its tail swinging in rhythm to the seconds flying by. V slides an egg onto a chipped plate from my cupboard and deposits it in front of me. I don’t touch it, instead choosing to carefully fold my arms in front of my chest.

 

“I cannot give you an answer that would satisfy you, I'm afraid. The less you know as of now, the better off you will be.” V countered to my last question. My brow lowers.

 

“Bullshit.” I deadpan. He turns away; I’m in the right in this argument, and he knows it. “I know we live in a shit time in history, but there’s more going on then just that. Please, V.”  I wheedle, “Just tell me anything.”

 

I registered too late that my rabid insistence was doing nothing but shut him down, and before I knew it the pan was washed and he had his cloak folded over his arm like some sort of 50’s businessman. He stood formally by the door, adjusting the brim of his hat with two gloved fingers. I shut up immediately. He was poised to leave, but it was much earlier than he usually did when he came to visit. The room quieted again.

 

“If I asked you to do one thing, would you do it?” V said. His voice was odd, quiet. My immediate impulse was to respond with a No, still being prickly and irritated by his incessant censorship. But I was taken aback by the notion that standing by my door was a man who I owed my life to several times over, who fed and clothed and cared for me at my weakest so I could grow to be my strongest. I owed him this, at the very least.

 

“...Yes.” I replied warily.

 

“Do you promise?”

 

“...Yes.”

 

“Don’t go back up to the city until November sixth.”

 

My face contorted in a mix of horror and anger. _November?! That was over half a year away!_

 

“You want me to sit inside these tunnels and do nothing for SIX AND A HALF MONTHS?!” I gawked incredulously, grasping at straws for a reason behind this ridiculous request. My face paled. _Not request. Promise._ “Fine. Okay.” I growled, “But you better have a DAMN good reason for making me live my life like this.” _Like a rodent. Like a pet mouse stuck in a barred cage._

 

“I do.” He replied, but didn't elaborate. Of course. Typical: he had to be the one in control. The yellow lights in the kitchen shone across the smooth finish of his inscrutable mask. 

 

“Ok. Cool. Get out.” I said, voice cold. I was sick to death of his ‘man of the house’ vague bullshit. I needed to breath for a minute, process the consequences of what I had just agreed to. V dipped his head in quiet acknowledgement of my command, slipping out of the heavy metal doorway like a shadowed phantom. As soon as the heavy handle thudded back into place, I gave a breathy exhale, running two hands down my face. _Shit._ I shouldn’t have said that. Sure, his strange coveting of information and death-grip on my ability to travel might be absolutely infuriating, but he was still really the only person I could talk to. Plus, we had real fun the past few weeks. It was nice to spend time around another person when I wasn’t permanently terrified of being black-bagged and shoved into a van. With this concept still lingering in my brain, I sprang up from the table to haul the massive front door open again, hoping he would be waiting just behind it. There was nothing outside except the pitch black of the dusty tunnel, no noise save for the occasional skitter of a rat in the pipes, just as in the dark and trapped as I was. I grimaced and swung the door shut. He was gone.

 

I never expected that to be the last time I saw him.

 

* * *

  


It was four days later, and V hadn’t come back to see me. Days turned to weeks, weeks turned to months. Whatever flame that was inside me for that man, whatever heat and fire he had managed to ignite, went colder and colder as each day passed. He had made me vow to lock myself deep in a dungeon, and effectively threw away his key and turned his back on me. Still, every time the clock designated it to be evening hours, I couldn’t help but pause for a moment and hope that strange man would sweep into my doorway, carrying me away on a wave of poetry and music and stories of the past to make me forget the real world.

 

One month in I realized he was never coming back, and the little red coal that was nestled close to my heart finally puttered out to nothing but a lump of dead ash. The tunnels were silent save for the routine roar of government maintenance trains every other week at 11 am sharp, stopping at a computer-run derelict station for an hour (presumably to work around and coordinate with all the other automated trains rumbling about). I would always get there first with a duffle bag under my arm, pry open several doors, pack up what I wanted, and change the item count on the papers by the front. The whole thing took around ten minutes, but I never stuck around. _He_ used these trains too, and I really wasn’t very keen on seeing his idiotic masked face.

 

I tried to catch him, once, in the second week he had disappeared from my daily life. I sat back on the platform and ate a powerbar for the whole hour the train was there, listening to the LEDs buzz and the train cars hum with electricity. He didn’t come that week. I think he knew I was there.

 

I resigned myself to live my life to the best of my ability. After all, this second wind of existence was a blessing I was constantly reminded of; how precious and glorious this little haven seemed after I fixed the radio and heard the daily news. The little antenna-toting contraption became my religion; It was on 24/7, my one link to the real world and all the people it contained. Everything I heard I took with a grain of salt, but the venomous tones of the broadcasters still gave me headaches on occasion. The things they said about V… vicious things, vile and angry things, closer to animalistic screaming than a daily relay of facts.

 

Needless to say, I learned a lot about a lot of things I never wanted to know.

 

There _were_ spots of light in the six months I rotted underneath the city. Some of the trains carried boxes upon boxes of paint in stunning hues, so contradictive of the bland tones of this underworld I lived in. I was never really much of an artist, but I killed a month of time by neurotically planning, sketching, and meticulously painting a wildly complex fresco on the biggest wall of my little home; the one stretching across the kitchen, living room, and ending at the bathroom door. I had to pull the low bookshelves and small table that housed my radio away from it and be endlessly careful not to flick paint everywhere, but that ended up making it a more time consuming and mindless task, which I didn’t mind considering I hoped time would die quickly. By the time I was done the wall was covered in creamy blue skies, endless orchards, lakes glinting in the sun, and all roads and parks crowded with familiar faces from memory. It was so packed with tiny little details, it would take a normal person an hour or two to really visually unpack everything. I didn’t add V to the fresco.

 

I also picked up vigorous exercise with a flashy set of lifting weights I snagged from the train, coupled with endless running through the set of tunnels I knew were 100% safe. I would push myself every day to go just a bit further, just a bit longer. After two months, I noticed bands of muscles running across my arms, the dramatic dip and cut of my calf, the sinewy strength of my torso. Exercise became a reprieve from the echoing silence around me. It was the hour and a half each day I could go completely mindless and think of nothing but my burning body and my heart beating in my ears.

 

As time went on, everything started to become okay. Not great, considering I spent a lot of the day talking to myself or the announcers on the radio, but ok. I was functioning. I was alive. My hair was thicker and stronger than it had been in years, my heartbeat slower with health, and my eye-hand coordination near spotless with the time I had put into painting and yoga (and repeatedly bouncing a tennis ball off a wall and catching it, but that was more of a nervous habit than an activity). I took up writing. Poetry, short stories, catalogues, speeches, and journal entries were written in tiny and neat handwriting on any form of paper I could get my hands on. Some of the raw seeds I had pilfered several months ago were starting to burst into shoots of green in the tiny hydroponic farm I had sitting under a plant light bulb I installed. My home, once flickering under the dull light of fluorescents and heavy with dust and disuse, had burst into a veritable cornucopia of color and life. It was beautiful and strong, just as I was growing myself to be.

 

For five months, life was ok.

 

Until someone knocked on my door at three in the morning. I was awake in milliseconds, fumbling for the lights and gripping a closely guarded hunting knife in my hands. I was frozen there, sitting in my bed, staring at the dimly-lit door at the end of the house. After so many months alone, any noise not created by me was terrifying and constantly unexpected. The squeak of rats jolted me, but a knock on the door? That was a horse of a different color. That was… actually dangerous.

 

The whole house was deadly silent as I slipped from underneath the sheets and grabbed my crutch from the corner, dusty with disuse; there was no time to strap on my prosthetic. It felt like the air was suffocating me as I silently made my way to the door, heart in my throat. It could be a trap. It could be a police patrol. It could be V. I didn’t want it to be any of those.

 

After a few silent seconds of my hand hovering over the heavy latch, static filling my ears with anxiety and fear, I yanked the door open and leaped back, body coiled tight and ready for anything that was going to leap through that door. There was nothing but blackness and the low sound of wind in the tunnel. I stood silently for a few minutes there, paranoid and waiting for even a slight change in lighting, for even one sound hit my ears in the wrong way. Nothing did. I stepped out into the tunnel, eyes adjusting to the near-non existent light. There was nobody here; not even the barest trace of distant footsteps. Had I just imagined it? I took a step to my right, and my bare foot touched something ceramic and cold. I nearly screamed at the top of my lungs, seconds away from becoming a human bomb of fried nerves. Nothing leaped up to kill me, so i hesitatingly lowered my hand down and fumbled for whatever I had just touched.

 

I grabbed the rim of something cold and smooth and lifted it up into the yellow light spilling from the door. My eyes widened; it was a rose. A single red rose, just beginning to flower, carefully transplanted into a plain black flowerpot. The leaves were smooth and cold underneath my curious fingertips; there was no doubt about it, V had been here. He didn’t stay, didn’t speak a word, didn’t justify any of the cagey bullshit he had forced me to endure months of. I exhaled through my nose as I hopped back inside, locking down the door and making space for the rose to sit under the grow lights.

 

Most people, upon receiving a rose, view it as a flirtation, a ‘hello’ of sorts. The start of something new. The senders of most roses would probably agree with that message. But there was something about this particular flower and the time it was delivered that made my heart drop, that filled my eyes with water and my head with a heavy finality.

 

This was not a hello.

 

This was a goodbye.

  



	6. Red Like Roses

The rose sat in full bloom on the coffee table I moved it to for a better view. From the research I had done on horticulture, I expected the crimson blossom to last 14-15 days, and was going to make the best of its striking scarlet beauty. I gazed at it glassily from the couch; I had been given it a month ago, but it’s beauty was only in full flower now. I glanced at the cat clock and grimaced. 11:38 pm, November the fourth. My time locked in this maze of dark tunnels was almost over, and my whole body buzzed with nerves. I was overjoyed at the prospect of stepping into the sun and feeling real wind on my face, sure. I was also deadly terrified of it; over the past month the radio news had gotten more and more radical. People were being shot in the streets. Suburban families were rebelling against federal forces. It was chaos. It would still be chaos when I left. 

 

What was even worse is that the chaos was all sparked by V’s hand.

 

I turned off the radio a day ago. I couldn’t bear to hear anything else about the most recent child gunned down in the streets, or a new bank robbed by a thug wearing V’s face. The book I was reading snapped shut and was returned to its own resting place on the shelf before I turned out the lights and  moved to curl up under the bed comforter I had knitted a month before; another product of me keeping myself busy. As I drifted to sleep in the pitch dark of my small home, I smelled roses in the air, and thought of V.

 

* * *

  
  
  


There was someone screaming in my house. 

 

That was my first thought as I sprang out of bed in the pitch black, knife tucked securely into the palm of my hand and heart racing wildly. The screaming didn’t stop.  _ Why wasn’t the screaming stopping?  _ I dragged a hand down my face, desperate to shake the blanket of sleep from my mind. It finally registered with me:  _ It wasn’t screaming. It was the sound of a train car.  _ Just as I had the realization, the noise was already growing fainter, having traversed the sharp curve of the tracks just one over from mine. I sank to sit on the edge of my cot, skin numb and mind racing.  _ Trains weren’t supposed to come down those tracks. Those tracks are supposed to be broken. If the government supply trains are starting to run down that area, that means workers will inspect the tracks. If they inspect the tracks they might find my tracks. If they find my tracks, and my door, i’m screwed. Game over.  _

 

My slowly mounting terror made a hard knot in my throat, and I was on the brink of a panicked sob at the thought of of this life being torn away from me when a second, fainter sound echoed down the tracks. 

 

_ Boom. _

 

The explosion followed the noise of the train within around 30 seconds, echoing down the tracks behind the wall outside. It must have been enormous. I immediately turned the lights on and started to dress, throwing on a thick flannel to combat the icy air of the tunnels and strapping on my prosthetic as fast as I could. If it was just a train racing by, I would have stayed inside and kept listening for a few hours. But this was an explosion; and explosions that you hear underground under tons of concrete and steel are never good. I needed to go out onto the tracks and see if I needed to evacuate. 

 

My knife went in the custom sheath inside my boot, and I yanked open the bedside drawer to reveal a loaded glock 19, shining in the lamplight. I shot it before to get my bearings on the functionality of the firearm, but only then. I hoped I wouldn’t have to use it now, but it’s better to be safe than sorry. The gun went in my thigh holster. Another rarely-used item I had stolen, a set of bulky night goggles, rested snugly on my brow.

 

I slipped out of the door and closed it immediatly to stop the light from pouring outwards and secured the goggles over my eyes with a click. The last reverberation of the explosion finally echoed into nothingness, and I started to quickly move in its direction. The faster I assessed the situation, the less likely it would be that people would start to swarm. My brain was practically making computer stalling noises as I silently slipped down the tracks, looking for the fake ventilation grate that served to connect the two tunnels. I tried my best to rationally come up with a plan, but the only words circling around in my head at 12:05 on november the 5th were  _ what in the fresh hell is going on?   _ Once the grate was located I yanked it out of the wall effortlessly, set it to the side, and crawled through into the other tunnel. The air was noticeably less dead as I followed the tracks.  _ Someone must have blown up the train, that’s the only way to explain what I heard.  _ I groaned internally.  _ It wasn’t a someone. It was Him.  _

 

My footsteps were near silent as I continued to slink forward, tunnel-vision focusing on the bend in the tracks ahead so I could book it back to the grate if i saw even a hint of a flashlight dancing across the walls. I was so focused, in fact, that I nearly fell on my ass with fright when something underneath my foot crunched loudly. I looked down in alarm, fingers brushing over my gun holster. I crouched in the dusky grime of the train tracks. Glass. Bits of glass littered the floor, sparkling like dangerous diamonds, more and more of them appearing as I walked forward.  _ This wasn’t here before, it must have come from the train.  _ I was so intent on following the trail of glass that it took me a moment to register the lump laying in the middle of the tracks in front of me. My whole body froze up as my eyes flickered across the motionless heap of black fabric and askew limbs. 

 

_ Someone was in the tunnel _ . My stomach tilted sideways, because I desperately wanted to think I didn’t recognize the weave and color of that black fabric but I did.  _ Jesus Christ, that’s V.  _

 

I ran forward in dumb shock, dropping to my knees and ignoring how the glass bit at my skin through my jeans. Gun safely holstered, I wasted no time gripping what might have been a shoulder with my numb fingers and turning the body over onto its back. My hand came away bloody as the body rolled over, and I suppressed a scream. There it was, bright and reflective in the green light of the night vision goggles; that eternally grinning mask I had come to love and hate. Both hands flew to cover my mouth and tears wasted no time dripping off my lashes. Is this it? Is this how we would meet again? Me on my knees and him dead in front of me?  _ Was  _ he dead?  _ He has to be,  _ a voice whispered in the back of my brain,  _ a train just drove by and he’s covered in glass. The only explanation is that he was pushed out of it, and nobody could survived a blow like that, especially at that speed.  _

 

I gave a little broken sob, that long-dead coal next to my heart sputtering and shuddering with pain I didn’t know I could feel. With shaking hands and a heavy heart I gently tilted that masked head upwards, fumbling around the blood-slick fabric of his outfit until I could lay fingers on his carotid artery. For an achingly long second there was nothing, and another twisted cry started to bubble up in my chest. Then, just slightly, so faint that I almost missed it, the skin under the fabric moved. 

 

A heartbeat. Weak and thready, but there. Within that one minuscule moment, my whole world exploded into movement and sound, panic and adrenaline.  _ He’s alive, oh my god, he’s alive. _ I quickly wiped my hand on my shirt and dug deep back into my memory banks for my EMT response training. Eyes flickering back and forth across his body, I steeled the freshly glowing coal beside my heart and flicked on my lenses of professionalism. 

 

First things first, he had to be moved to a safe area. I couldn’t see very well with these goggles on, and all my emergency response supplies were at home. In full on medical trainee mode, I dug my hands underneath his back and curled them up under his armpits, locking them in front of his chest. Walking backwards was tedious and time consuming in the dark, but with my heart in my throat and his delicate grip on life on the line, I couldn’t risk moving any faster. My feet crunched over the glass as I backtracked. As I pulled the massive masked man through the remodeled vent I couldn't help but be grateful for my paranoid hoarding of hospital grade medical supplies coupled with my daily weight-lifting. 

 

I only pulled one arm out from under his shoulder to wrench the giant metal door open and haul us both inside, leaning on it until it shut behind me. In the eye-blindingly bright light of the room, the thick crimson smudges we trailed behind us on the concrete were painfully obvious. My heart skipped in panic when I saw it. 

 

With a final heave, V was laying faceup on the carpet in the middle of the living room, body motionless and clothing wet and shining with blood. “Shit, fuck, ok, fuck-” I said shakily. I couldn’t lift him up onto a table or couch; I was going to have to try and heal him here on the ground.

 

“Fucking shit tit balls, son of a bitch, shit,” I continued to babble under my breath, scrambling up from the floor and clawing through one of the boxes I kept for supply storage. “Rule number one, guys. Never just start treating a patient. Take a few extra moments to really assess the gravity of the damage before you act; it may save a life.” I dictated back to myself as my hands found a kit of medical tools. The words my teacher had said were coming back to me with crystal clarity, and I was going to follow them to the letter. 

 

I thudded back down at V’s side, snapping on gloves and whipping out a pair of surgical scissors. His doublet seemed to be the most saturated with blood, riddled with coin-sized tears.  _ Bullet wounds _ . I pinched the fabric in my hand, poised to cut it away and see what I was dealing with. But I hesitated. The little coal inside my heart was shouting, telling me that doing this would violate any existing friendship and trust I had with the man who so strictly concealed every inch of skin under cloth. The medical professional in me shamed the coal back into hiding with its obstruction of medical intervention. How dare it value emotions over saving a life! I quickly cut the doublet up the side, as well as the thin white shirt underneath is, peeling it away from the body. 

 

Even under all that blood I could tell that something was very, very wrong. His skin didn’t look like skin. It looked like...Well it-  _ Oh my god, it looks like overcooked cheese pizza! _ my panic center screamed, recoiling in raw shock and disgust. A crude description, but accurate. But that wasn’t what had the medical professional in me freaking out. Polka-dotted across his muscled torso were eight bullet holes.  _ Holy shit. 8 bullet holes. He should really be dead.  _ Nobody should be able to walk away from that. I breathed in through my nose, shutting my eyes tight and giving myself ten seconds to just  _ stop  _ and  _ think _ .  _ Breath. I don’t need to know how, I don’t need to know why. I just need to treat this.  _

 

“Examine the damage.” I repeated out loud, moving closer to the wounds. My brain sighed in relief. They were all open wounds, meaning I didn’t have to worry about blood pooling in his chest cavity. There were no exit wounds either. In fact, if I dabbed at the holes with a cotton pad I could actually  _ see  _ the dull shine of metal inside. The wounds were shallow. Really unusually shallow; some hadn’t even gone past his ribs. Either he was the luckiest man alive, or he was wearing some sort of body protection at some point. I didn’t touch the bullets. Statistic chances were that they were acting as a sort of cork in a wine bottle, only this wine bottle was several large arteries. There was just one that I removed from his upper sternum (that I knew for a fact was fractured) because it was so incredibly shallow and resting on a bone.

 

“Stop the blood loss.” I murmured out loud again, ripping open quick-clot packets and placing them firmly in and around the wounds, giving them a moment to congeal before delivering swift stitches with a suture needle. I wiped down his chest to avoid infection, but I knew what my real motive was; as soon as I was done treating his chest I was going to have to take his mask off and put him on a ventilator to up his oxygen levels. My throat constricted when I moved my hands up to his face and slid the heavy metal object up, centimeter by centimeter, until his mouth was exposed to the cold room air. I gulped, but at least the results were somewhat expected. His face was just as mottled and bumpy as his chest and hands, his lips scarred and warped. I put this information into the back of my brain and mindlessly moved to strap on the mask over his mouth and across his messy wig, calibrating his oxygenated ventilator. As soon as the air started to flow, I knew I had done my job. 

 

I paused for a moment. Something was wrong. With a resigned grimace I put my ear to his damp and bloody chest to check his breathing; just as I suspected, there was a distinctive wheeze I had been taught to recognize as a collapsed lung. It was a pretty easy and gross fix. I grabbed a surgical tube with my blood-slick hand, felt over his sticky ribs, and jabbed it through the surface of his skin, gritting my teeth. There was a hiss of air and I sighed in relief as his breathing returned to its normal shallow pattern.

 

I spent the next hour timidly rolling up his pant legs and examining his arms, which were mottled with deep tears passing bullets has caused, and stitching them up before gauze wrapping them. I finally found my bags of saline solution and hung one from a knob on a dresser a foot away, starting the flow into the needle inserted in his arm. I elevated his injured arms and legs with pillows and gently laid a sheet on top of his chest after swabbing it down once more. It might not do anything much in the way of warmth, but it served to save this foreboding man some dignity. Only after everything was done and I sat staring at his tilted mask for a few moments on my pins-and-needles knees did exhaustion set in. My whole body was shaking from fatigue and adrenaline. I slouched back against the dresser, breathing hard.  _ Holy shit. I just did that _ . What scared me more than anything was that for all my efforts, He was still a wild pendulum swinging between life and death and there was nothing I could do to stop it. He could have a head injury and never wake up, and I wouldn’t know. This wasn’t a goddamn hospital. 

 

After peeling off my gloves I ran a hand through my sweaty hair. I was going to need a lot of coffee.

  
  


* * *

 

 

Every 15 minutes I got up from the couch, walked across the floor, and knelt beside V. I checked his pulse, lifted the sheet and applied more clotting agent, and double-check the saline bag and minor stitches. I wished with all my heart that I could do a blood transfusion, because god knows he needed one, but there was no telling if we were even compatible. 

 

My gaze was locked on the soft rise and fall of his chest across the room, the tick tick tick of the clock numbing my thoughts as I held the now-cold cup of coffee in my hands. There was so much to process about this situation, but I didn’t have the energy to think about any of it. It was 4:00 AM now, and my whole body felt like lead. It was a constant battle to shake myself awake and choke down more caffeine. The room spun around me; from shock or from exhaustion, I couldn’t tell. 

 

Finally at 6:00 am he was stable enough to get his first painkiller injection. As I loaded the needle my personal feeling threatened to overcome my professional ones, and it took all my strength to squash them back down in my chest. I pulled the saline out of his arm with fumbling fingers and slipped another needle in, head heavy and nodding. I thought of nothing else but how incredibly grateful I was that he was alive.

I grabbed a roll of gauze to bind his chest with, but suddenly that gauze in my hand turned to three and the room was moving too fast and everything was dark.

 

* * *

 

 

I woke up on my side on the cold concrete, head pressed against V’s shoulder and gauze still in my hand. “Holy shit, V.” I rasped, bolting upright. Fuck, I fell asleep on the job. How long was I out? His life was in my hands.  _ Did my negligence kill this man?  _ A few terrified moments with my fingers pressed against his neck made me sigh with relief; he was alive. His pulse was actually quite strong. The ventilator machine beside me echoed my comforted exhale. V was a big man, but he looked so pale and small underneath the sheet with a tube strapped to his face. This terrible man, this incredible man, was lying on my living room floor, staining my favorite carpet with blood. What had I done in life that lead me to this moment? What wrong paths had I taken? More importantly, what the hell was I supposed to do now? V offered no sage wisdom to my questions. His wig surrounded the back his head and face like the black halo of an ancient deity; powerful, dangerous, and asleep.

 

I rubbed my eyes. What time was it? The cat clock read 8:43 am, and I huffed as I refilled the needle with morphine for V’s injection. It would keep him out and healing comfortably for another hour or two. As I stood up on groaning knees, I eyed the trail of blood across my home. Now that wouldn’t do. I followed the trail up to the doorway, and my stomach dropped.  _ A trail of blood that leads right here.  _ Now that SERIOUSLY wouldn’t do. I had to get rid of this one obvious red arrow pointing to my home. Standing halfway across the room, I glanced back at the still and silent form of V, still breathing steadily. If i was quick with some cleaning supplies and a screwdriver, I could wipe away the evidence and be back before 10. 

 

In mere minutes I was out the door with a cleaning rag, rubbing alcohol, an electric screwdriver and screws, a broom, and a trashbag. It was truly a blessing that nobody had ventured backwards from the blast into the tunnel by now; wherever the explosion was, it must be wreaking havoc on the surface for there not to be search parties down here. Flashlight clamped between my teeth, I made quick work of the blood leading into the vent and across the floor, then immediately switching to clearing out any and all shattered glass from the train with my broom; meticulous and exhausting labor. Finally, ages later, I redistributed the grime and filth back over the places I had swept as best as I could before crawling back into the vent and screwing the grate on permanently. The blood on my tracks and my floor could wait until another day; plus, I didn’t think my arms had the strength left to even scrub with a rag. 

 

At 9:58 I slumped back onto the couch, sweating and grimy and sticky with coagulated blood. Cleaning up the evidence did little to ease my anxiety ridden mind. I would turn on the radio, but don’t dare disturb the quiet of the room that V occupies. Sitting a few feet away from that man feels like sharing a cave with a sick tiger. You might treat it until it gets better, but you have no fucking idea how it’s going to act. It might kiss you, or kill you: and in V’s case I’m honestly not sure which one would be worse. The two most recent frights of today have been enough to fill me with unquenchable terrified energy, so sleep is probably going to have to wait until tonight. Instead I trade catnapping for a hot shower so I can stop smelling dead blood all the time. When I scrub my own skin with a sponge, I think of V. V’s skin, more specifically. What horrible experience could damage a person so fully, so completely? The same experience that could turn someone into a vengeful and vindictive killer? The more I considered the notion, the more sour my mood became as I realized I knew nothing about him, and he knew everything about me.

 

I slipped out of the bathroom 20 minutes later, wet hair soaking my shirt and dripping onto my pajama pants.  _ Some dark caffeinated tea sounds really good right now,  _ I think idly after wringing my hair with a towel, standing in the middle of the living room. Watching V breath is almost hypnotic; I’m entranced by the unusual combination of weakness and strength. His powerful form underneath that white sheet… I jerk my head back a bit. I’m an idiot. He’s lost a ton of blood and must be freezing, and here I am not bundling him up, like a complete asshole. I rummage under the bed where i keep the carefully folded quilts and gently pull two over his torso and upper legs. Along with turning on the portable heater, that should keep him warm while his body works on the traumatic damage. I eye the discarded doublet and shirt laying in a pitiful heap by his shoulder. They’re riddles with holes and mangled beyond recognition, not even worth keeping. It’s weird, seeing them like this. Not clean-pressed and spotless, a trademark of V’s signature look, but a sad mess on the ground. I reach for the bloody pile with a sore arm.

 

A something shoots out from the top of V's blankets and I take a surprised and sharp inhale. It’s a hand, V’s hand, red and scarred and covered in tiny spots of brown blood. The rest of his body is still, but this one hand is weakly moving to his mouth, pawing at the assisted breathing mask on his mouth. I drop the clothing in shock. I really did it. He’s awake.  _ He’s alive. _

 

There’s a barely-existent strained exhale from V as he continues to fumble with the mask in a clearly drug-hazy state, and I snap out of my elated reverie and drop down to his side, feet tucked under me.

 

“Shit, V, stop,” I say breathlessly, gently pushing the weak hand away from his mask. It trembles slightly, a terrible feeling under my fingers. He was awake, but just barely, and probably in full-on panic mode considering he couldn’t move and couldn’t see since I moved his mask. “No, hey, it’s just me. You know me. You, uh, you were shot,” My voice catches in my throat, and his skin feels hot under my fingertips. “You were shot a lot. But you’re safe now, I promise. Please, just don’t move, OK? Don’t move.” I was panicked at the sight of him even being conscious right now. He was gravely injured; him doing literally anything at this moment was too much. 

 

Eventually his hand stilled. “V?” I said quietly after a moment. There was no response. He was out like a light. The notion made me visibly relax in relief. If he was fighting this hard just mere hours after I had stabilized him, the next few days were clearly going to be one hell of a ride. 

 

_ I’m gonna need a lot more tea. _


End file.
